Designed around Oak's OTI-9797T controller, the CR-485CTE features industry-leading 40X CD-R write speed, 20X CD-RW rewrite speed, and 48X CD read speed on blank high speed media. This high performance allows the CR-485CTE to write a 74-minute audio CD-R disc in just two and a half minutes and to write a 650MB data CD-RW disc in four minutes and 21 seconds.

CD-R/RW drives are the fastest growing segment in the optical storage market and are rapidly replacing CD-ROM read-only drives in both business and home PCs. The business market for CD-R/RW drives is driven by the requirement to exchange files of up to 650MB in size for which the old 1.4MB floppy diskette standard is inadequate. The home PC market uses CD-R/RW drives for a range of applications including the creation of custom audio, video, or photo CDs and data archiving.

The CR-485CTE incorporates the Mt. Rainier standard, developed by Compaq Computer Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, and Sony Corporation, which enables drag-and-drop CD rewriting and on-the-fly formatting of the disc in order to facilitate the adoption of CD-RW storage as a replacement to floppy diskettes. The CR-485CTE incorporates Oak's ExacLink(TM) buffer under-run technology which, together with a 2 megabyte buffer (a 16 megabyte option is also available) provides one of the highest success rates and disc quality when burning CD-R discs.

"The market is just releasing 12X CD-RW drives. Using Oak's advanced OTI-9797T controller, the CR-485CTE is one of the first drives on the market to offer 20X CD-RW recording speeds, allowing us to offer our PC OEMs one of the fastest drives available today," said Yoshinari Yamaguchi, general manager, ODS Division, Mitsumi Electric Co., Ltd. "The high silicon integration in Oak's OTI-9797T controller is crucial in allowing Mitsumi to meet the price targets of our customers."

"CD-RW re-writing speeds have typically lagged behind CD-R speeds. Mitsumi is closing the gap by combining 40X CD-R performance with industry-leading 20X CD-RW performance in the same drive. Oak's OTI-9797T controller and ExacLink technology is a key element for our customers' continued leadership in both performance and drive affordability," said Clark Foy, vice president of product marketing for Oak's Optical Storage Group.

Oak's OTI-9797T Controller

Oak's OTI-9797T controller employs partial and full CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) write plus dynamic write strategy, allowing a high degree of programmability and flexibility in the implementation of CD-R and CD-RW write strategies. In addition to a highly automated block decoder/encoder, the OTI-9797T integrates a 48X CD-DSP that uses a proprietary slicing technique and digital symmetry control to offer increased frequencies and gain programmability. The OTI-9797T digital CD servo provides highly accurate and advanced track counting, enabling the unit to jump an exact number of tracks -- up to 2047 tracks -- to substantially reduce seek time.

The CD wobble decoder/servo block supports speeds up to 48X and allows CD encoding at all legacy speeds from 1X to 48X as well as providing tracking CLV servo control up to 48X. Tracking CLV is an advanced feature for partial CAV and Zoned CLV drives which allows for constant average speed recording that tracks motor speed variations resulting in higher fidelity recording speeds when compared to actual media speed. The OTI-9797T also has integrated audio DAC and filter circuitry.